Since 1976 Tone has designed many musical compositions which translate visual images into sound.

One of the first Japanese artists to compose “events” and improvisational music, Yasunao Tone became active in the Fluxus movement in 1962. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s he organized and participated in many of Tokyo’s “happenings”, as well as in avant garde music and performance groups, including Group Ongaku and Team Random, which was the first computer art group organized in Japan. Primarily a composer, Tone works in many media, creating pieces for electronics, computer systems, film, radio, television and environmental art. Since moving to the United States in 1972 he has composed several scores for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and has presented concerts in New York and Europe. He continues to participate in Fluxus concerts and exhibitions, most recently at the 1990 Venice Biennale and at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City.

Since 1976 Tone has designed many musical compositions which “translate” visual images into sound. MUSICA ICONOLOGOS continues his exploration of this musical theory, using two ancient Chinese texts as primary source material. In MUSICA ICONOLOGOS, Tone “interpreted” the Chinese characters from the texts into photo-images from our visual experience (many of which are incorporated into the design of the CD). These photo-images, reduced to pixel resolutions (arrays of dots), were then digitally encoded, so that the sounds on MUSICA ICONOLOGOS are encoded descriptions of the photos in utmost detail. As Robert Ashley writes in the liner notes, “In the mythical future (or today) somebody can translate the sounds of this compact disc back into pictures.”

MUSICA ICONOLOGOS is Tone’s first recording on Lovely Music. Two of his compositions, Trio for a Flute Player and Lyrictron, are included in Barbara Held’s 1991 Lovely Music recording UPPER AIR OBSERVATION (LCD 3031).